How did you become a socialist? - Page 2 - Politics Forum.org | PoFo

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As either the transitional stage to communism or legitimate socio-economic ends in its own right.
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#14863342
I become a sorta Anarchist in late high school/earlu university through reading (complete nerd, read a lot of books, read all through school like I viewed it as reading time ), George Orwell (homage to catalonia), Ursula LeGuin (The Dispossessed) being the two most influential on me, I was always interested in Ideas and it was very much from a conceptual idealistic point of view. At Uni the Marxists really rubbed me the wrong way, their "democratic centralism" just looked like junior fascism. I've Mellowed a bit these days, I view Anarchy as more Zen Buddism sort thing, its how you treat people. I live in a small housing co-op (fell into through Dating a Girl) where we maintain, and share common spaces, (Big hall, garden, laundry lounge)so I kinda living some sort of anacho-socialist reality.
#14863435
I'm a misanthropic socialist, I don't care so much about liberating the masses, my main concern is saving the future from the elites the masses have empowered. But I do think socialism is how decent people would organize.
#14878516
I grew up on the internet in the early aughts and was exposed to european thinkers on internet forums and I found their arguments compelling. Also, I noticed a lot of smart people I respected like Albert Einstein, Stephen Hawking, and Noam Chomsky were socialists.
#14905429
Well I started out as what I thought was middle. Because rightwing people told me I'm left and leftwing people claimed I'm rightwing.

Then I read the bible (I've always been christian) and it turns out the bible demands communism and socialism, and in the strongest words.

Ever since I've read a bit of Marx and he's not halfway as radical as the bible. For example he doesnt say all rich people will end up in hell.

But I couldnt find a single statement in the bible that supports liberalism. Quite on the contrary, to the bible liberalism is just egoism. The bible demands altruism.

Theres still some people who are much more leftwing than I am, though.
#14971660
@Pants-of-dog, It's good to have elders who are socialists, because that way if one ever shames you, you have people older than you who you can use as a step. Because hundreds of years ago, one step forward was considered a serious crime in many societies. Like if you didn't believe in a god, or if you went against the family or promoted feminism, you could get shamed, or even executed.
#14971663
I was always a socialist. I just didn't know or completely understand, but as I got older, I understood more. I also realize that currency and the concept of value are inefficient, and waste humanity's energy.
#14971798
SSDR wrote:And I always thought that money was evil, and that it makes people corrupt and mentally insane.


You got it backwards, money doesn't corrupt people, people are corrupt so they invented money as a vehicle to facilitate their corruption. Not money in general of course, just the specific form of bankster money adopted by this diseased racket we call civilization.
#14971925
SSDR wrote: Like if you didn't believe in a god, or if you went against the family or promoted feminism, you could get shamed, or even executed.


Ah, the good ol' days.

:*(

Sivad wrote:You got it backwards, money doesn't corrupt people, people are corrupt so they invented money as a vehicle to facilitate their corruption. Not money in general of course, just the specific form of bankster money adopted by this diseased racket we call civilization.


Even though I basically agree with everything you said here, I almost hate the idea of agreeing with it because you, for reason, feel the need to state it in the mot cartoonish way possible.

Do you enjoy sounding like a propaganda posted printed off over at Info Wars?
#14971928
Victoribus Spolia wrote:
Do you enjoy sounding like a propaganda posted printed off over at Info Wars?


That's high praise. Infowars is one of the most effective propaganda outfits going. I don't approve of the wingnuttery or the blatant bullshitting but Alex Jones could teach a master class in propaganda.
#14971930
Sivad wrote:That's high praise. Infowars is one of the most effective propaganda outfits going. I don't approve of the wingnuttery or the blatant bullshitting but Alex Jones could teach a master class in propaganda.


:lol:
#14971933
If pofo has taught me anything it's that reasonable discussion and measured speech is a waste of time in politics, if you want to sway people you have to use strong rhetoric which appeals to their fear, their desire, their sense of outrage. And if I can do that without lying or even stretching the truth then why not?
#14971966
Sivad wrote:
I'm a misanthropic socialist, I don't care so much about liberating the masses, my main concern is saving the future from the elites the masses have empowered. But I do think socialism is how decent people would organize.



Perhaps you haven't noticed, but this statement of yours is internally contradictory -- 'liberating the masses' is *equivalent* to 'saving the future from the elites'. And there's no mass-empowering of those elites -- they use militarism and violence to stay on their perch.


SSDR wrote:
@Political Interest, Yeah I don't like mass immigration.


SSDR wrote:
I was always a socialist. I just didn't know or completely understand, but as I got older, I understood more. I also realize that currency and the concept of value are inefficient, and waste humanity's energy.



You're not a socialist if you're against open borders because capital, every day, gets to whizz around the globe without boundary constraints, while *working-class* people, like those of the caravan from Central America, are limited by the capitalist governments in their geographic access to better job markets, like those of the United States.

I'd like to *generalize* 'currency' and 'the concept of value', to *exchange values* altogether -- socialism is essentially a call for the *elimination* of exchange values (implying a strong nationalistic currency), in favor of a world society of *use values*. Material production of all goods and services should be collectively directed by the workers themselves / ourselves, to determine how to fulfill unmet human need everywhere, instead of continuing to rely on the 'hands-off' market mechanism, that relies on (abstracted) exchange valuations.


Sivad wrote:
You got it backwards, money doesn't corrupt people, people are corrupt so they invented money as a vehicle to facilitate their corruption. Not money in general of course, just the specific form of bankster money adopted by this diseased racket we call civilization.



You're hedging, to only criticize the *expansion* of the money supply -- politically this is a *reactionary* line, because you're implying that interest and rents collected on existing, *non-productive* capital are okay, but even the bourgeois-paradigm use of *equity* (investment) capital is too much for you and your politics. Anyone who dismisses government control of the money supply, as for deficit spending, is implicitly backing feudal-like / slavery-like social relations of rentier capital that ultimately ties the working class to private lands / estates. Without government backing of investment capital there is no real capitalism and growth of industry because the ownership of rentier capital is sufficient for those owners, and they have no economic motivation / incentive to expand their hoards for the sake of growing industry and liberating serfs and slaves to the somewhat-more-flexible social role of *wage* slaves, as we have today.

I have a fuller treatment of this topic at RedMarx:

https://www.tapatalk.com/groups/redmarx ... t1241.html


And, money itself wasn't an 'invention' as much as it was a logical progression of class society and the role / duties of capital ownership (private gold supplies to gold-paper, and then the public government service of state-backed notes, etc.).

There's no alternative to 'civilization', except a revolutionary overhaul of it, so there's no point in *denouncing* 'civilization' when no better alternative to it can be suggested -- your line is a dead-end.


---


Sivad wrote:
If pofo has taught me anything it's that reasonable discussion and measured speech is a waste of time in politics, if you want to sway people you have to use strong rhetoric which appeals to their fear, their desire, their sense of outrage. And if I can do that without lying or even stretching the truth then why not?



*Or* -- if you give people the benefit of the doubt, that they can potentially see-through the power structure of class rule, then socialism becomes something more like 'political education', meaning the knowledge of how class-riven society is *actually structured* (elitist ruling class vs. the world's working class), so that class struggle can better be a two-way street, instead of the typical everyday labor-exploitation and social-minority-oppression that is *usually* is.
#14971994
ckaihatsu wrote:You're not a socialist if you're against open borders because capital, every day, gets to whizz around the globe without boundary constraints, while *working-class* people, like those of the caravan from Central America, are limited by the capitalist governments in their geographic access to better job markets, like those of the United States.


This is false, various socialist thinkers, especially Stalinists, would argue that the revolution must occur at the national level first in order to eventually achieve international goals; however, this implies closed borders and national sovereignty, indeed, unions specifically have often been threatened by unfettered immigration as it undermines their ability to negotiate exclusive terms with companies since they can pay immigrants much lower wages.

Libertarians have always been open borders, not socialists.

This is also historically true, as nearly every self-proclaimed socialist nation was closed-borders as a matter of policy.
#14972044
Victoribus Spolia wrote:This is false, various socialist thinkers, especially Stalinists, would argue that the revolution must occur at the national level first in order to eventually achieve international goals; however, this implies closed borders and national sovereignty, indeed, unions specifically have often been threatened by unfettered immigration as it undermines their ability to negotiate exclusive terms with companies since they can pay immigrants much lower wages.

Libertarians have always been open borders, not socialists.

This is also historically true, as nearly every self-proclaimed socialist nation was closed-borders as a matter of policy.


Correct, well said. And any ''Socialist'' who would say otherwise otherwise is no Socialist, or has not thought this problem out well enough or honestly enough.

It would do no good to win a Socialist Revolution (peacefully or otherwise in a country or not) and then undermine those gains by importing workers under a Capitalist system and with a capitalism-oriented mindset :excited:
#14972069
@Sivad, No, money makes people corrupt. That's why some people who have a lot of money tend to be more socially corrupt, especially wealthy people who have power over others' destinies, such as their workers and maybe their families that they are relying on.
#14972071
@ckaihatsu, Open borders has nothing to do with socialism, unless if you believe that socialism cannot exist unless the whole world is one, united socialist society. There is also nationalists who are socialists, and it's great that I can use them as references to back myself up against ultra internationalists who think that all socialists are only internationalists. Nationalism has nothing to do with socialism.
#14972074
SSDR wrote:@ckaihatsu, Open borders has nothing to do with socialism, unless if you believe that socialism cannot exist unless the whole world is one, united socialist society. There is also nationalists who are socialists, and it's great that I can use them as references to back myself up against ultra internationalists who think that all socialists are only internationalists. Nationalism has nothing to do with socialism.


I am afraid many people don't realize that ultra nationalists are not international socialists at all. For the international socialists all workers in many nations who are not the bourgeoisie or the ruling classes are supposed to be building cooperative units that counter international capitalism's abilities to enter many nations and seize their power via economic and political influences.

Can't do that believing in crap about only caring about your own nation and not the workers in other nations. You will lose to capitalists every single damn time. Lol. Anything where you restrict yourself to only dealing with a specific nation, nationality, race, religious group or anything that smacks of exclusivity will be soundly rejected by international socialists, communists and far left. That is why excessive nationalism is the hallmark of the RIGHT not the LEFT.

Asi es.
#14972154
Tainari88 wrote:I am afraid many people don't realize that ultra nationalists are not international socialists at all. For the international socialists all workers in many nations who are not the bourgeoisie or the ruling classes are supposed to be building cooperative units that counter international capitalism's abilities to enter many nations and seize their power via economic and political influences.

Can't do that believing in crap about only caring about your own nation and not the workers in other nations. You will lose to capitalists every single damn time. Lol. Anything where you restrict yourself to only dealing with a specific nation, nationality, race, religious group or anything that smacks of exclusivity will be soundly rejected by international socialists, communists and far left. That is why excessive nationalism is the hallmark of the RIGHT not the LEFT.




That's somewhat confused, a lot of what these nationalists are opposing is ant-democratic elitist internationalism(New World Order globalism), and I'm in full solidarity with them as far as that goes. Nationalism can become toxic but local sovereignty is nonnegotiable, I wouldn't give that up for anything and certainly not to be ruled by corporate free trade arbitration committees and unelected international governance soviets.
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